On the Contrary

I was watching one of the news media shows where they had a balanced panel of commentators discussing whether it would be to the Democrats advantage or disadvantage to push for investigations of the Bush administration (torture, wire tapping, leaking classified information to the press).  I put balanced in italics because each of these commentators is a mouthpiece for their particular political persuasion.  That means that everything they say is crafted to make their party affiliation look good, so very little honesty goes on here.  But what you do hear is the conventional wisdom of Washington.  That is, what is the incestuous Washington talking heads thinking is reality.  On this particular day, the conventional wisdom is that this would be bad for the Democrats to hold the Republicans accountable for breaking the law.  It would hurt their agenda.

I think they have this so wrong as to be almost stupefyingly ignorant.   Their thought (a rare agreement among the whole group) is that it would detract from the Democrat’s agenda of health care, energy, and the economy.  Now for the conservatives on the panel, this position is very self-serving.  Why would they want to expose the depth of their depravity?  But as usual, the Democrats on this panel are about a mile behind the public and fail to see a jugular exposed when they see it, much less know what to do with it.  And more importantly, they fail to see that their agenda means nothing if they don’t stand up for their basic beliefs in the law and our Constitution.

But here is the real crux of the issue:  The American people have been on this free ride where sacrifice and accountability have been eschewed for having it all now.  They are seeing the results, except for the Bankers and the wealthy, who have reaped the benefits of this system of short term gains.  They know this can’t go on.  They are looking for core values that give them hope for the future.  The Republicans are looking stranger and stranger as they try to maintain the status quo when most Americans are demanding change.  They have no plans for the problems that face us but to either deny them, or to block any attempts to fix them by the Democrats, which might look like success.  But if Democrats become more interested in their agenda than in their core values, they start to look like Republicans where the ends justifies the means.

The very essence of change in America will begin when we start standing up for our core principals, even when doing so might be painful.  And Americans are hungering for belief in something again.  What the Democrats are missing is that these investigations will expose the Republicans for the valueless party they are.  It will de-legitimize them in the eyes of most Americans.  It will actually make change easier in the future once Americans have been exposed to the crass hypocrisy of the present Republican Party and see a party that is willing to risk short term gains for the long term good when they stand up for their values.  It will establish the Democrats as the party of values and real change instead of just more of the same.  Most importantly it will reestablish the rule of law, fairness, and the supremacy of the Constitution, what America is really about.

I won’t fool you and tell you this will be easy.  I won’t tell you that some Democrats are not going to get mowed over in the process because they enabled some of this stuff.  But that is the whole point.  What is important is never easy and sacrifice is required.  Look at the health care debate.  The whole thing is revolving around being revenue neutral.  Why?  People hear revenue neutral and they think no sacrifice.  It is going to cost what it costs and we have to do it.  Pay for it with a surcharge across all wages and salaries.  It is a shared burden.  That’s a new concept.  The point here is that it is time for honesty and the American people are looking for leadership that embodies honesty.  When the Democrats say that their agenda is more important than honesty, they have put their agenda at risk.

There is one other side benefit of pressing forward with these investigations.  It may save the Republican Party from itself.  If you believe in a two party system, but both of the two parties are now in the Democratic Party with the Republican Party the lunatic fringe, then exposing the baseness of the Republicans and how the caved in to power will be the first step in helping them rebuild themselves.  Until the nation is forced to look at what they have wrought, and reject them totally, they will continue to pander to the psychos in their base, and not bring responsible plans to the table for our future.  Tearing them apart is the first step in healing this nation and restoring a responsible and viable Republican Party.

So as usual the Washington Press and the political pundits have it exactly wrong.  They are looking for the short-term gain, instead of the long term win.  But that has been both our politics and economic philosophy for the last 30 years.  I guess change is really very hard.  President Obama has fallen victim to this shot sightedness.  Hopefully he is starting to see the light.

This election is really about who we are as Americans and what our philosophy for the future really is.  The conservatives understand that the very survival of their ideas depends upon this election.  The progressives have yet to really define what this battle is about.  “Change” doesn’t begin to describe what is really at stake here and until the progressive really engage in this battle, they will forever be relegated to second place.  This battle is not about issues; it is about how we approach the 21st century and who we are as a people.

Progressives think in terms of empathy and responsibility.  They have empathy for those around us, and they have a responsibility to do something about it.  Government is for protection and empowerment:  Protect one’s physical security and rights, and empower its people to be successful (think education, healthcare, infrastructure, etc).  Progressives understand their morality in what George Lakoff* calls the nurturant parent model (NPM).  Both parents are responsible for raising their children, children are born good and can be make better, the world can be a better place, our job is to work on that, and parents job is to nurture their children and to raise their children to be nurturers of others.  From that comes the edict that it is your moral responsibility to teach your child to be a happy, fulfilled person who wants others to be happy and fulfilled.  It is a moral world of cooperation and synergy.

Conservatives think in terms of authority and obedience to authority.  There is a moral person in charge and the role of the people is to be obedient to authority to maintain order and morality.  Government’s primary purpose is to maintain order by protecting us from threats from outside the system and enforcing the authority and discipline of the leader. Conservatives understand their morality in what George Lakoff* calls the strict father family model (SFM).  Morality in this system is obedience to authority, assumed to be a legitimate authority who is inherently good.  Note that in this system it is assumed the world is an evil and dangerous place, children are born into it immoral, and through punishment learn discipline to be obedient.  If people are disciplined, pursue their self-interest, they will become prosperous and self-reliant.  Without this strict discipline, the world is an immoral place.

This are two very different systems views of government and moral systems.  One, the progressive is open to dissent.  Progressive want to find the best possible world and they are in the mode of cooperation and discussion to find it.  Conservatives think they have found the best possible world and it is defined by small government, little regulation, non-existent taxes, open and unregulated markets where the moral will be victorious and the immoral and undisciplined will fail.  Government intervention to help these that have failed is just encouraging immorality.  Most importantly, in the strict father family, dissent is viewed as disobedience, and is not tolerated.  In their system, the self sufficient and disciplined person who seeks his and only his self-interest will prevail and there will be good for all.  That is why the huntress and fisherwoman Sarah Palin is so valued among conservatives.  She embodies these characteristics.  The problem is that these characteristics, self sufficiency and independence, which made us a great country in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries, are no longer relevant in the world we live in, the 21st century.  The proof of that is in the failures in the last eight years reflected in our economy and in our standing in the world.

Conservative philosophy, unlike progressive philosophy, is a deeply held faith.  The strict father model of morality is a reflection of conservative religious beliefs.  As such, the basic underpinnings cannot be challenged.  Much for the same reason fundamentalist Christians deny evolution because it might bring their whole religious edifice down,  conservatives will not accept that their basic beliefs are no longer functional in the 21st century.  The failures of the last eight years must be due to conservatives who lost their way, lost their self-discipline.  Change to them just means finding conservatives who are pure.  Then things will be hunky dory.  Remember that conservatives feel they are morally right because they are conservatives.  The rest of us who question their basic philosophy are the barbarians that will bring chaos into the world.

The funny thing is that George Bush, other than his Neocon leanings, met the test of a good conservative.  He lowered taxes on the rich and two-thirds of business don’t pay any.  He neglected government by starving the beast and appointing his cronies instead of competent public servants since government is the problem anyway; he gutted the important roles of protecting our citizens through the FDA, securities oversight, banking oversight, because regulation stifles business; he turned the Justice Department into a political partisan organization because only conservatives have the proper morals to govern; and then he instituted torture, rendition, and waived the constitution because obedience is above all else.  Their abuse of power was systemic and is a result of the fact that they really feel they are morally superior and they don’t have to answer to the rest of us, just the discipline of their rules.  Ted Stevens come to mind?

So the battle is really between whether we are going to adopt the model of the self-reliant hunter and frontiersman/frontierswoman that was in tune with 18th century America, or are we going to adopt a model of cooperation in working together with government to address the real challenges of the 21st century.   The rest of the world is moving past us while we dither on which model will propel us forward.  The conservative model has failed and failed miserably.  The challenges of the future are not how to be self-reliant or gut a moose, they are about working together to solve massive problems that will take a partnership of both an empowered government and private enterprise.  Ask your self the following questions:

• If the economy needs a modern infrastructure to be competitive in the global market place, who is going to build it and how are we going to afford to build it as we continue think small government is the answer?
• We have a deficit that is amounting to roughly $30,000 for every man, woman, and child under conservative cut taxes and spend wildly.  How are we going to take this load off our children by reducing taxes even more?
• Most economists agree that our future depends upon our human capital, and our ability to innovate in the future.  How is this going to happen as we cut our investment in education and research and development, and depend more on competition in the school market place?  Anybody noticed the debt our graduates are carrying today?
• How are we going to have an energy strategy that really does relieve us of our burden on foreign oil and oil itself unless government invests in a massive way to help industry build the infrastructure for alternate energy systems?
• Every other industrialized nation has recognized that for profit medicine is the most expensive way to deliver healthcare.  But conservatives are terrified of this system because it threatens their whole edifice of the marketplace solves all problems.  What is it about making a profit by denying claims don’t they get?
• How does reducing taxes produce flow down to increase economic activity when we have no more room to reduce taxes and the inequality in America is growing every day?
• How can we have less regulation on businesses and avoid the Erons or Mortgage crisis melt down that is upending our economy?
• How are we winning the surge when there is no movement in Iraq and the troops and the costs are not being significantly reduced?  How much longer can we continue to afford to “win” this way?

Said another way:

• Flow down/trickle down economics (Voodoo Economics) has been a failure except for the very rich
• Seeking your own self-Interest in the extreme and hurts more people than it helps
• The marketplace is limited in a global marketplace in solving problems and righting the system
• Decreasing taxes is not a cure-all for the economy and has not substantially helped our economy in these troubled times – there is little more to cut as we go broke
• Government has an important role in both our society and our marketplace
• The welfare of all of our people is critical to our success
• We have a responsibility to help those disadvantaged so that we are all buoyed up
• We are all in this together

The problems that face America in the future are complex and difficult.  They will take a partnership of our government and our private sector to deal with them.  Government doesn’t need to be smaller when you consider the things we ask and need it to do.  It needs to be smarter.  Conservative philosophy does not recognize this complexity and looks for simple solutions that have totally failed us.  They have no plan for the future except more of the same applied more rigorously.  That is because it is their religion and their faith is unshakeable.

This election is not just about ideas, it is about our future place in the world.  If the conservatives succeed in distracting the voting public from the real state of our country with cultural wars, inciting class warfare, and emotional cheap shots (that’s why the McCain camp is now working with Karl Rove), they may win this election.  But we all may loose if we fall any further behind the rest of the world.  Four more years to prove the travesty of this approach may just be four more too many.  It is a battle worth fighting and I wish the Democrats would show the passion in this fight that the Republicans have in trying to protect their religion from reality.  It’s about our children’s future.  The Democrats do not have perfect answers but their philosophy allows for dissent and discussion.  In the strict father family of the conservatives, this is heresy.  Which world do you want to live in?  Until Democrats understand that this is a real war for the soul of our country and the emotional, not rational basis it is being fought on, they will be striking out with “the facts ma’am, just the facts.”

* George Lakoff, “The Political Mind”, “Don’t Think of an Elephant”